Ryan Benedetti works as a Web Developer for the University of Portland. He works with jQuery, JavaScript, Java, Ruby, PHP, Liferay Portal, Drupal, and Apache's Jakarta Velocity Templating language.

For seven years, Ryan served as Department Head for Information Technology and Computer Engineering at Salish Kootenai College, on a team that created an NSF-funded four-year Bachelor of Science in Information Technology program and Science, Tech, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) camps for eighth to twelfth graders.

Prior to that, he worked as editor, web database developer, and information systems specialist for a river, stream, and wetland research program in the School of Forestry at the University of Montana.

One of Ryan's greatest passions is teaching and training coding and other technology to new learners. He volunteers in Portland schools to teach code and technology skills to kids.

Ryan holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the University of Montana and his poems have been published in Cut Bank and Andrei Codrescu's Exquisite Corpse. He spends his free hours painting, cartooning, playing blues harmonica, making learning toys, and practicing zazen. He spends his best moments with his daughter, his son, and his sweetheart, Shonna, in Portland, OR.

You can view Ryan's daily art blog at http://bendedyeti.tumblr.com